The Metro Awards are now 20, officially older than any of the students who might win one of the coveted honors.

Producer Danielle Rudess was present at the creation of the awards, which honor the best work among participating schools in Rockland, Putnam, Westchester and Bergen counties. They began at the now-defunct Helen Hayes Theatre Company in Nyack and those first awards were affectionately known as "The Helens," for Helen Hayes, the first lady of the American stage.

Rudess has continued the Helen Hayes Youth Theater and kept the awards going, as the Metropolitan High School Theater Awards.

Rudess took a few minutes to reflect on the long strange trip it has been.

"I look back at the past 20 years and think: 'How did I survive those first few years?' It is so much easier now. We have been around so long that highly qualified judges reach out to us (10 new judges are on board this year), our registration and adjudication forms are all online (no more combing through hundreds of mailed in handwritten adjudication forms).

"The relationship with Purchase College has been the greatest gift. Working with professional theater administrators and crew completely changed the game for our team last spring and I loved watching the performers running around backstage in that environment. Giving young performers a taste of a professional theater environment was a missing piece of the Metros for so many years.

"The first five years of “The Helens," there were no cellphones or email. A few people had fax machines. This is a program that involves a multitude of logistics. I don’t recall much sleep during those years, especially the two years when the awards ceremony took place simultaneously in two theaters via live satellite: Helen Hayes Theatre Company in Nyack and the White Plains Performing Arts Center.

"And how can we forget the year that we held the awards ceremony at Caramoor? It's one of my favorite theaters in the world, except that Mother Nature chose to bestow a monsoon upon us and the theater floor became a mud pit."